The historical context of The Fire Next Time shapes the reader's understanding of the text because it shows in detail how much the author cares about this what he talks about in his stories and how passionate he is when it comes to them. It opens the reader to the harsh world of a black boy growing into a man in the poor slums of the city and all the problems a black man must face. This book does more for the reader than anything else published about black life in poor cities in terms of reader exposure. The reason he has this ability is because of how James Baldwin wrote him. He was able to express himself in essay form with a storytelling technique. Together, these two techniques combine to form a collection of essays about what blackness means. According to Baldwin, being black is immutable. It's a burden for a young person to bear. Being black means you are destined for a particular life, a life with disappointing consequences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The first part of his book describes this idea perfectly. “You were born where you were born and faced the future you faced because you were black and for no other reason.” This shows that Baldwin believes that being black means you are stuck in a dead end type of life. This lifestyle is also brutal. Baldwin mentions many examples of this in the various essays you read. One line he writes hits you in the chest and makes you step back from the book and think for a second. “You are born into a society that has made it clear, in every possible way, that you are a worthless human being.” For a man, writing this about his race allows you to truly understand what he feels and how powerfully he feels it. Baldwin begins to describe fear as ignorance. Baldwin joined the church because of his fear. He was afraid to be with his friends who were starting to drink and smoke. To avoid these things, Baldwin embarked on a church boy lifestyle because he "assumed that God and security were a better path in life." Shyness blinded him into believing that following God's words would protect him from the evils of society, which he was wrong about because he was always treated as poorly as any other black individual. However, because of Baldwin's love for his church, he read the Bible, only to realize that it was all about learning the teachings of white people. He believed that going to church would protect him and protect him from what he feared. Instead of freeing the community from discrimination between blacks and whites, the Bible supported racial barriers by teaching how to behave toward another race. Realizing the hypocrisy of Christianity, James Baldwin broke away from the Church of Congress to seek his own way to make society greater. Baldwin emphasizes that liberation is love and that “love is more important than color.” James Baldwin states that fear creates a need for power, which is true because you want to have more leverage over someone you fear so you don't even end up in a bad position. The Nation of Islam feared that whites would exert more control over blacks. Fear has always dominated the minds of white people, which is why they tried to enslave and kill us. This fear caused Elijah to fight for power to free the community so that his children and the children growing up would not be beaten and killed as much as is happening now. The Nation of Islam wanted a. ».